Which acts model happiness?: an exploratory analysis on Twitter and Goodreads

Abstract

Modeling and analysis of affective and inner states is gaining prominence in research. Articulating the entire spectrum, ranging from recipes of long-term happiness to factors leading to depression, we frame a model of happiness states of people comprising of three states: G (lasting happiness), P (flickering) and I (frustration), respectively. The definitions of these states are based on psychology literature. We used a XgBoost Classifier to categorize 54,066 Twitter users based on their tweets and analysed the results including what kind of friends each category of users have (for 120 users obtained after thresholding 213 manually labelled users). Analysing XgBoost classification we could re-confirm characteristics mentioned in the definition of the three states (G, P, I) and find out more traits/characteristics beyond the definition as well. We observed that G users are more people-oriented. G and P users are more work-oriented than I users. G users are elder in age to P or I users. I users were found to be more religious than P owing to shelter-seeking traits. Qualitative analysis shows that G group suggests long-term vision, selfless and positive qualities, religious mindset and positive demeanour as expected. I group suggests negative feelings and activities and sensual words as expected. P group has traces of both G and I. P group contains dominating, strong words and extreme negative reactions. We found 21,115 users having Twitter and Goodreads handles to study what kind of books users of each category read. Reading patterns of G constitute of academic/technical, religion, inspirational/self-help and romance. Those of P users are fantasy/fiction, sports, LGBT/BDSM/Erotica and horror/violence/betrayal. I users tend to read fantasy/fiction, death and indiscriminately any arbitrary topic. G and P users make friends in the same category whereas I users tend to have friends in P category, but not among themselves.